Homemade Juggling Beanbag Guide > Important Edit Log

Change the image content filter setting.  The filter is currently set to full filtering.

Downloading content. Please wait...

Log of Important Edits for The Complete Homemade Juggling Beanbag Guide

Below are important changes I have made to my guide such as corrections to numeric values or mathematical formulas, major changes or corrections to illustrations or textual content, or newly added sections or chapters. Unimportant edits will not be noted.

• 9/17/2024 – I added a note to all pattern intro pages to give a recommendation of how much to enlarge the patterns for dense/stiff or completely non-stretch fabrics.
• 9/16/2024 – Submitted my new 12-Panel Simplified Volleyball/Cube instructional chapter.
• 8/5/2024 – At the inspiration of this Reddit thread I compiled all of my 32-panel color arrangements into a separate document for the convenience of footbag makers, and removed them from the main chapter document. I also created footbag hex versions of all 60 arrangements (285 illustrations) and used those for the assembly layouts for better differentiation between the pents and hexes, and included ball illustrations for both the footbag hex and the Equidistant hex. I also consolidated all but two of the footbag hex arrangements into the main hex arrangement section.
• 2/15/2024 – The links in the 01 root document to other guide documents had gotten corrupted, so I had to fix them all. I also added a note to the 26 and 30-panel patterns suggesting how to choose a size for gathered seams. (I already added this note for the 32-panel patterns.)
• 2/11/2024 – I added awl hole marks for all patterns up to the dodecahedron for those who want to make leather balls using the baseball stitch. I also improved the leather stitching subsection of the Stitching Techniques section of the 01 root doocument, added a section in Chapter 4 about leather balls, and made various smaller improvements.
• 1/22/2024 – I added a 6-inch pattern for the Tetrahedron. This affects the Tetrahedron chapter document and the pattern compilation document. I had previously not included the large pattern because the 7-inch size I included for the other designs did not fit on the page, and I didn't think anybody would ever need a pattern larger than 3 inches anyway. But a 6-incher does fit, and I learned that some people do like this design, so I decided to add that.
• 1/21/2024 – Some of the inter-document links in the Orange Peel Ball chapter document didn't work due to a header hierarchy glitch. Two headers were both #4. I had to delete the second header and type it back in and assign it as a header again for it to update to #5 in the hierarchy. Simply reassigning the existing header seemed to work, but it changed back to #4 when I closed and opened the document.
• 1/20/2024 – Inspired by a Reddit post, I tested my tetrahedron pattern with faux leather (marine vinyl) and found that my pattern works very well. I also experimented with a Bézier curve modification and found it to make no discernable difference in the ball shape. I wrote an essay about my experiments and included photos of the vinyl balls in the "How I Developed This Design" section of the Tetrahedron chapter document. I also added subsections to that section to aid in readability.
  
  With the further experience I gained by making four more faux leather beanbags using the single-needle baseball stitch, I decided I was now able to add some brief instructions and tips for this technique in the "Stitching Techniques" section of Chapter 2 in the 01 document. I also added a link to a tutorial video. In addition, I converted some of the other instructions in that section from paragraphs to numbered lists for better readability, and I reordered the sections, putting the (lengthy) instructions for the backstitch after the more general topics. I also made a few edits in other sections.
• 1/10/2024 – I increased the resolution of the Printable Measuring Tapes from 380ppi to 600ppi. This won't make any significant difference, but I wanted to make note of it.
• 1/6/2024 – I learned that Europeans use a different paper size in their printers. Their standard "A4" size is 8.27″ (210mm) wide, which is almost a quarter inch narrower than the US's "Letter" size at 8.5″, which is what I use. This means my pattern pages will throw "outside print area" warnings (which can be disregarded, but may cause confusion for some people), or may be reduced automatically to fit the A4 margins. The A4's length is longer at 11.7″ (297mm), so that won't be a problem.
  
  So, I resized the printable pages of my documents to 8.27″×11″ (from 8.5″×11″) so that they fit within both paper sizes without warnings. I also added a note about this in the print notes.
• 12/29/2023 – Made the pattern page size and printing notes clearer and more prominent.
• 12/5/2023 – Added two new arrangements to the 32-Panel chapter's 14-panel hex section: #1 and #3, Tri-Wing Hemispheres. The rest of the documents had minor edits to the pattern printing instructions.
• 11/23/2023 – I made many changes and expansions. Some of them involved changing the file names of chapter documents and changing inter-document links. So readers will need to download the entire set of guide documents to be sure all inter-document links work.
  • I added a new chapter to my guide: the 14-Panel Spherical Cuboctahedron & Truncated Octahedron. Though these designs do not feel very important to me (I created them mostly out of boredom), I am glad for the other changes they prompted me to make, especially the expansion and improvement of Chapter 5, and the motivation this project gave me to proof-read the mathematics sections of all my chapters again (which have had the fewest proof-reading passes due to my burned-out brain not being able to effectively process them). I found quite a few errors (mostly minor, fortunately) and corrected them, and I improved some of them.
  • I renamed the other 14-Panel chapter, adding the word "Spherical" so that it conforms to the other chapter names. I omitted that previously because I thought it made the file name too long. But I think consistancy is more important, especially because the new 14-panel chapter has "Spherical" in the name, and the lack of it in the other chapter's name would suggest it does not use curved panels. Besides, it is only a few characters longer than the Rhombic Dodecahedron and Equidistant Icosidodecahedron chapter names, and is much shorter than the 01 root document's name (73 characters), and shorter than the new 14-panel chapter. (My concern is that Windows limits file names, including the full directory path, to 260 characters.)
  • As part of adding this new chapter and renaming the old 14-panel chapter, I had to update all links to the old chapter, and update references to "the 14-panel design" to specify which 14-panel design now that there are two 14-panel chapters and three designs.
  • I renamed my 32-panel design from "Equidistant Icosidodecahedron" to "Equidistant Truncated Icosahedron" to reflect my design process. Even though the icosidodecahedron was my conceptual starting point, my actual design process involved truncating the icosahedron. I made this decision while adding a section to Chapter 5 about the Equidistant transformation and discussing the process I had used for my two Equidistant designs.
  • I updated the 32-panel chapter document's filename to reflect the new design name, which means that the links to it in other documents had to be updated.
  • I improved the 32-panel Mathematics sections, and added three new color arrangements (Equidistant: #12 "Back-to-Back" and #26 "Triple Scoop"; 14-Panel Hex: #2 "Flowers and Rings").
  • I made many changes to the other chapters. Most of them are small tweaks. The biggest change was to Chapter 5 of the 01 document. I added three new sections to it (an introduction, a section on choosing design testing fabric, and a section on the Equidistant transformation), and I reworked the Curved-Edge Faces section to use the example of designing a 96° corner for the triangle panel (the angle I actually used for the octahedron) instead of the 90°. The reason I used the 90° example before was that I had already created the illustrations for that demonstration in 2015, thinking it was to be the solution to the curvature problem in the octahedron pattern. It was rather foolish of me to create illustrations for an unproved theory, but I have to follow my motivation, and that was what I was motivated to do at the time.
  • I improved the text and terminology in some cases throughout the documents. The biggest change was due to my realizing that "radius" is not really the correct term for the distance between a polygon's center and its corner. The correct term is "circumradius", meaning the radius of the circumscribing circle, as opposed to the inscribed circle, or "inradius".
  • I made a correction to the 24-panel chapter's Mathematics section. Due, apparently, to a copy-paste from the 30-panel chapter, I used the term "rhombus" instead of "kite" in reference to the panel shape. I also corrected some notation errors in the Mathematics section, and numerical values in the drawing instructions sizing formulas (failed to round correctly), and in the SketchUp drawing instructions cutting pattern calculations (I had failed to replace the multipliers with those of the new kite design).
  • I checked the other chapters' Mathematics sections and pattern sizing formulas. I made some minor edits, and a few corrections. The 14-panel and 26-panel chapters had incorrect multipliers for drawing the square cutting patterns. By accident I had used sqrt(2)a ≈ 1.4142, which would be for the square's circumradius, instead of 2sqrt(2)a ≈ 2.8284 for the diagonal.
  • I thickened the pattern lines of the designs up to the cube from 6px to 8px. I did this because precision in cutting out those patterns is not very important, and it will help people with poorer eyesight.
• 10/24/2023 – I fixed some copy/paste errors in the Mathematics section of the Rhombic Dodecahedron chapter.
• 8/29/2023 – I added one more Chevron arrangement to the 30-panel chapter ("Dual Chevron Rings").
• 8/28/2023 – I added three new arrangements to the 30-panel chapter - the "Chevron" arrangements. I discovered this arrangement in Hane-Dane's footbag montage photo (near the top-left corner), which is shown in my 26-panel chapter's "How I Developed This Design" section. I also made minor corrections to the Dual Tri-Leaf arrangement illustration, and changed the colors of the Reverse Flower with Leaves arrangement to match another footbag in that montage photo (several footbags to the right of the other), which I like the look of.
• 8/14/2023 – I added 6mm allowance (~1/4") cutting patterns to the 2 - 12-panel patterns (the rest already had them). I also reformatted the footnotes throughout the documents by changing the numbering font from Times New Roman to Liberation Sans (with boldfacing), and adding 0.04" paragraph spacing.
• 8/4/2023 – I discovered a rendering problem last night while looking over one of my documents on my phone. It is a strange and complicated problem. Today I experimented to figure out how to fix it.
  
  What I know so far is that the NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE character (U+202f), when in close proximity with the FRACTION SLASH (U+2044) on the same text line,* usually causes a rendering glitch when the document is viewed in the mobile version of Adobe Acrobat (I use PDF-XChange Editor on the PC, which does not exhibit this problem). The glitch causes large blocks of text and images in the vicinity of the two characters not to appear, leaving empty areas on the page. Zooming in causes part of the missing content to render, but the area immediately around the characters does not render at any zoom level.
  
  In my previous edit I had replaced standard forward slashes in superscripted/subscripted fractions with the FRACTION SLASH, and I had used the NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE on the left of fractions that had a another character on their immediate left (such as a whole number portion, left parenthesis, or tilde) because the expression looked too cramped otherwise. A normal space looked just slightly too wide, even when superscripted along with the numerator.
  
  I fixed the problem by replacing the NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE with the regular NO-BREAK SPACE (U+00a0, and still superscripted along with the numerator to reduce its width) when the fraction occurs in blocks of text, and with a HAIR SPACE (U+200a) when in tables. I prefer the spacing of the hair space or superscripted narrow space. The reason I cannot use the hair space in blocks of text and must use a non-breaking space is that otherwise a fraction could break onto the next line leaving the whole number portion or other adjacent character behind.
  
  This change affects all documents.
  
  I also replaced a few instances of the letter "x" used as a multiplication sign to indicate dimensions (as in 2" x 5") with the proper MULTIPLICATION SIGN (U+00d7) and surrounded it with non-breaking spaces instead of normal spaces to keep the expression together.
  
  *In my experiments it seems that the glitch only occurs in specific relative positionings of the two characters together. Neither character alone causes it, and they can both be on the same text line, or on adjacent lines and vertically adjacent, and not cause the glitch. But they cannot be on the same line and next to each other or separated by only a few characters. I have not done enough experimentation to determine any more specifics.
• 8/2/2023 – I changed all pattern labels to include millimeter measurements (for the convenience of Europeans), and I changed the decimal inch measurements to fractions because I suspect there are many people who do not understand the correspondence between 0.25, 0.5, & 0.75 and their fractional equivalents (the patterns themselves are unchanged).
  
  In addition, for improved appearance and to be technically correct (the best kind of correct ;-) I replaced, in all documents and patterns, the RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK when symbolizing inches with the DOUBLE PRIME character (U+2033), all standard QUOTATION MARKS (U+0022) with the LEFT and RIGHT DOUBLE QUOTATION MARK (U+201C & U+201D) when not used to specify inches, and I replaced the SOLIDUS (standard forward slash, U+002F) character in fractions with the FRACTION SLASH character (U+2044) and added a superscripted NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE (U+202F) between fractions and the character to their left (if any) for less cramped spacing.
• 7/10/2023 – Improved the beanbag measuring tapes by adding more increment lables, extending the measurement portion of the tapes a little, and indicating the increment size on each tape. This affects the root document and the pattern compilation.
• 6/9/2023 – I made a small, fairly minor correction in Chapter 5, in the deltoidal icositetrahedron Weighted Average Isovertex paragraph. Counting the two types of 4-way vertices as 8-ways in the vertex count calculation would not work, I think. I also added the method for counting the vertex types to the three chapters that use Isovertex polyhedra.
• 6/6/2023 – I greatly expanded Chapter 5 of the 01 root document with a section on the Isovertex polyhedron modification technique I developed. I also made other improvements to that chapter, and to a few other parts of the document. I made a few minor, related edits to the Orange Peel document, the 12-panel Rhombic dodecahedron document, and the 30-panel document. Nothing very important, though.
• 5/20/2023 – On the 18th I corrected the spelling of the 32-panel chapter PDF, but I had neglected to check the download attributes in the webpage link for that document. I must have copied the file name there because it also lacked the "e" in "hedron". I also discovered that one each of the Tetrahedron, Cube, and Octahedron chapter download attributes lacked the leading zero in the file name. I downloaded all files from my webpage to check all file names and corrected the errors.
• 5/20/2023 – Published a compilation of all my juggling beanbag patterns without any beanbag-making instructions. Why? Partly as a convenience to anyone needing only the patterns, and partly because I'm bored and need distractions from existential emptiness.
• 5/18/2023 – I made many minor edits to all documents, which were too inconsequential to make note of, but then, after submitting the changes, I happened to notice that the 32-Panel chapter document filename was mis-spelled, lacking the "e" in "hedron". So I corrected the filename and updated the links to that chapter in the 01 root document.
• 4/20/2023 – Published the new 12-Panel Spherical Rhombic Dodecahedron chapter, and updated the 01 root document to reflect the new design.
• 4/19/2023 – Added two new arrangements to the 30-Panel Rhombic Triacontahedron: #10b: Bi-Color Belt Type B, and #27b: Penta-Color Belt Type B.
• 3/27/2023 – Corrected the 32-panel document's triangle variation section. Due to copying and pasting and forgetting to edit the copied text, I still had references to the hexagon in the "Design summary and mathematics" topic and in the drawing instructions. That may have caused some confusion. The rest of the newly edited documents have unimportant edits.
• 11/22/2022 – I refocused and improved Chapter 5's section, "Applying the Tangent Chord Angle Theorem". Over time I had lost focus on what the purpose is of the series of calculations at the end of the section. They are to show how to calculate the relationship between the size of a circular polygonal pattern shape and the size of the guide polygon and circle radius that form it, using the tangent chord angle theorem. (Some of the text implied that they were to show how to draw a circular triangle.) I also added an example of how to use the results of the calculations for a hypothetical pattern.
• 11/8/2022 – In the 12-Panel document's "Making the Panels" section, the corduroy cords were oriented incorrectly in the right-hand assembly diagram's bottom two panels. The panel on the left left was rotated one side counter-clockwise, and the right panel was rotated one side clockwise. They would not have formed the intended pattern.
• 10/8/2022 – I submitted a project I have been working on since August 31, which is to design and test a Bézier curve for my octahedron pattern. It makes very little improvement, as I suspected, but I updated the Ready-to-Print patterns with the new curve (leaving the original patterns at the end of the chapter), and added instructions for drawing the curve and comparisons to the circular curve and to Marylis Ramos' curve. I also updated Chapter 5 with the new information.
  
  I also added grain orientation diagrams for the octahedron, and improved the ones for the 14-panel chapter.
  
  Note that while all of the documents have had their Last Edited date updated to today's date, only the root doc, Orange Peel chapter, 8-Panel Octahedron chapter, and 14-Panel chapter have had significant changes made. On the rest I merely swapped the two blue columns of text on the cover pages.
• 10/5/2022 – I added grain orientation labels to the 14-Panel's color arrangement diagrams so that hexes of differing colors can more easily be made to conform to my suggested grain orientation layout.
• 8/30/2022 – I added illustrations to Chapter 5's "Curve shape: Circular arcs vs Bézier curves" section to show how I suggest drawing Bézier-style curves, and to show why I think circular arcs work fine for most of the panel structures.
• 8/18/2022 – Published the Third Edition.
• 7/29/2022 – Corrected the assembly layout diagram for the 32-panel Equidistant arrangement #25: Claw Marks (3-color variation). I found the error while recreating the 32-panel color arrangement diagrams for the upcoming Third Edition. Only the dual-hemisphere layout is wrong. The error would result in the stripes each having a panel of the wrong color. This affects only the main guide, not the Condensed Edition.
• 7/10/2022 – Corrected an error in the assembly layout diagram for the 24-panel color arrangement #11: Tri-Color Diamond Ring. The panel in the lower-left patch was in the wrong position. I found this error while recreating the 24-panel color arrangement diagrams for the upcoming Third Edition. This affects only the main guide, not the Condensed Edition.
• 6/9/2022 – I added a second way to draw the 24-panel kite shape that I think is better for drawing it by hand. This increased the page count by 1. I also corrected the Short Diagonal (previously called "Kite Length") Base values column in the precalculated measurements table which had the wrong formula in the spreadsheet I copied from. I also made some minor improvements to the assembly illustrations for most of the designs.
  
  While double-checking the other tables, I discovered more errors. When I changed the 14-panel calculations to use a weighted average of the two circumference measurements, I never updated the pattern measurement tables. The change is insignificant, though. In the Sizing Formulas for the 26-panel design, the Square Side Length is stated to be equal to the Triangle Radius. It is actually equal to the Triangle Side Length. This must have been a copy/paste error from the 14-panel design. The table of pattern measurements for the pentagon of the Truncated Icosahedron (32-panel, equilateral hex variant) used the 1.03 adjustment factor instead of the 1.038 for the Pentagon Side Length column. This also affected the Pentagon Height adjusted column values, but the Radius values were correct. Fortunately, the patterns are correct. I used the radius to draw those.
• 5/31/2022 – I expanded Appendix II, "How To Draw Spherical Polyhedra", with a new method for drawing them. I developed this method for the Rhombic Triacontahedron (I'm planning to add this design to my guide), which I could not at first figure out how to draw in spherical form using my original method. I also added a section about the derivation of the Brilliant.org logo, which I happened to inadvertantly create when drawing the spherical rhombic triacontahedra. I also added a bit to Ch 14, "Other Juggling Bag and Footbag Designs".
• 5/18/2022 – I added a bit of content to the "Seam Allowance" section of Chapter 2, I added a new color arrangement to the 26-Panel Chapter (#26), and I added many new designs to the Lineup of Footbag Panel structures in Chapter 14, the largest addition being a collection of designs with three-dimensional panels. The expansion of Chapter 14 added 3 additional pages to that chapter. These changes affect only the Full guide.
• 5/4/2022 – I made a correction and a few improvements to the Ready-to-Print patterns:
  • The first two pairs of patterns for the 32-panel design, 14-Panel/Footbag-Style Hex Variant (pg 388), were mismatched to their sizing lables. The patterns labled 2" are actually the 2.25" patterns, and the patterns labled 2.25" are actually the 2" patterns. Somehow when I converted the patterns to combo-only on 10/25/2021, I reversed the order of those two pairs of patterns, but the lables remained in the same order. I corrected those and checked the rest.
  • I made a new 32-panel ball (using the Equidistant variation pattern) using corduroy that sizes like my other balls. The original ball used a couple of corduroys that are not from slacks and have a different adjustment factor. Based on the new ball, I changed the adjustment factor for the hex variants from 4.5% to 3.8% (the triangle variant is reduced from 3.7% to 3.0%). This is an almost insignificant change (it will increase the circumference of 2.5" balls by 1.6mm), but I redrew the patterns anyway. It's a good thing I did as it revealed the above error.
  • I added 6mm cutting patterns to the 24 through 32-panel patterns as gray lines between the existing 4mm and 8mm pattern lines.
  • I raised the resolution of all patterns to 600dpi. I originally chose 400dpi for a mostly arbitrary reason. 600dpi is a standard resolution and so makes more sense to choose. It also reduces the aliasing of the printed pattern lines to a nearly invisible level. Since I now export the document to PDF at 600dpi, some other images will also have a higher resolution, while the rest will remain about the same as they are at a lower resolution in the master document. This change increased the full guide PDF from 85.4MB to 105.8MB.
  • I made the pattern lines thinner, which helps in cutting along them accurately (I use much thinner lines when I print patterns for my own use). The lines for the 2-3" patterns are actually the same 6px wide, but now that they are being reduced from a 600dpi resolution instead of 400dpi, they are 1/3 thinner. The 7in pattern lines are a little thinner as well. They were 8px thick and are now 10px, which is the equivalent of 6.7px if they were still 400dpi.
• 3/21/2022 – The formulas for calculating the cutting pattern for the truncated icosahedron (soccer ball) on page 435 above the pattern measurement table were wrong. I corrected them and double-checked the others. This affects only the full guide.
• 3/19/2022 – I added six new color arrangements to the 32-panel chapter of the full guide: one to the 14-panel/footbag hex section (arrangement #2) and five to the icosidodecahedron section (arrangements #9 - #12 and #14). This increased the full guide's page count by 3.
• 3/17/2022 – I added two new color arrangements to the 26-panel design in the full guide (#14 Alternating Triangles and #23 Alternating Triangles with Checkered Squares). This increased the full guide's page count by 1.
• 3/5/2022 – I made a change to the Spherical Cube pattern, decreasing the edge curvature very slightly. The tangent-chord angle is reduced by 0.5° (the total corner angle is now 126° instead of 127°). This is not really a significant change, but it seems to work slightly better with marine vinyl, which simulates stiff leather. If someone like the operators of the Maryland Renaissance Festival's dunking booth uses my design for leather balls, I want it to work as well as possible and not have stress points in the seams.
• 2/17/2022 – I added a section to Chapter 2 about ironing finished beanbags to reshape them into better shperes and smooth the seams. I hadn't done much experimentation with this before, but it is surprisingly effective. I added references to this technique in various places throughout the guide. I also added some information to the Orange Peel Ball chapter's Design Notes section about some new experiments with grain orientation using denim.
  
  These changes added 2 pages to the guide, shifting the page numbers of most of the chapters.
• 12/5/2021 – Consolidated the 32-panel Ready-to-Print patterns and Blank Color Arrangement Diagrams instead of separating the main, Equidistant ones from the three variations. I decided this makes more sense and will be simpler and more intuitive for readers.
• 11/24/2021 – Reworked the first few pages of Chapter 15 and a couple of the illustrations, and tweaked several of the "How I Developed This Design" secsions.
• 12/1/2021 – I had previously made a grid for the 7" extra-scalable patterns to help in verifying correct scaling, and I decided to add it to all the other patterns. The reason is that even though there is a ruler at the bottom of all pattern pages, if the patterns are scaled up, that ruler may no longer fit and be cropped out by the page margins.
• 10/27/2021 – I suddenly noticed that I had never incremented the numbering for chapters 13 and 14 to account for the new 26-panel chapter. They are now chapters 14 and 15, and I updated all references to them. (This does not affect the Condensed Edition.)
• 10/26/2021 – Added some info to the end of the Baseball's "How I Developed This Design" section about the durability of my marine vinyl baseball, and about the slightly elongated shape it developed, with a quote from Flying Clipper's website that suggests that this is not due to a flaw in my panel design.
• 10/25/2021 – Changed the patterns for the 26 and 32-panel designs to be combo-only rather than stitching patterns and combo patterns. This allows them to fit on fewer pages, simplifies them, and allows them to be placed in the middle of the page, which will allow for more enlargement before they extend beyond the page boundaries. I also touched up the 32-panel math sections and a few other things.
• 10/22/2021 – Fixed several links throughout the document that pointed to the wrong document sections due to the target sections being moved or renamed.
• 10/18/2021 – It seems I have regained some interest in this guide, but mostly because I have nothing else to do. This time I boldfaced much more throughout the instrunctional chapters, and in the other chapters, both in the full guide and in the condensed version. Again, this should help people skim the text and get the most important information without reading everything. I know that I am much more verbose than suits most people. This should mitigate that.
  
  Additionally, I added hatching lines to the 26-panel assembly diagram to serve as a guide for orienting the grain of woven fabrics in a balanced manner. I added relevent instructions to the "Making the Panels" section. (I know from personal experience that not balancing the fabric grain can result in a lopsided ball.) I also moved the 32-panel icosidodecahedron assembly section to right after the main assembly section and made many small tweaks to most of the chapters, mainly in the assembly instructions.
• 10/17/2021 – I boldfaced more terms and phrases than I had previously in Chapter 2, and in the Baseball, Orange Peel Ball, and 32-panel intros, to aid in skimming them. This almost exclusively affects the full guide, not the condensed version. I also submitted many small, unimportant edits over the past week or so to both versions.
• 9/28/2021 – I have mostly lost interest in this hobby since a month ago, but over time I occasionally perused a few sections of my guide and made inconsequential edits or typo corrections. Then today I moved the Turtle Ball assembly diagrams and basic instructions to the beginning of that section to make them more convenient for those who do not want to scroll through all my verbosity first. I'm submitting all the small edits and this one together. The Condensed Edition is unchanged.
• 8/24/2021 – I added 7-inch patterns to all designs except the Baseball and Tetrahedron (that large a pattern will not fit on a page). These are for scaling to any size greater than 3", and I made them versitile enough to scale up or down (thicker lines so they are still thick enough when scaled down, and 16mm of seam allowance with 2mm intervals so that when scaled down, they will still provide enough allowance, and scaled up there will be small enough increments to cut the amount desired). I chose 7" because that is the largest size of Orange Peel Ball pattern that will fit on a page (I had to omit 2 allowance intervals to make them fit). That happens to match the size of a size 3 "mini" basketball (ref). I added a centimeter grid to the new pattern pages so that the patterns can be scaled across multiple pages and reassembled, using the grid to line up the sections.
• 8/13/2021 – ANOTHER MAJOR REVISION:
  • I renamed the "Beach Ball" the "Orange Peel Ball".
  • I designed a 6-panel Orange Peel Ball pattern and included it in the Orange Peel Ball chapter.
  • I discovered that I had incorrectly designed the 4-panel Orange Peel Ball pattern and corrected it.
  • I finally made a corduroy Baseball and resized the patterns slightly for its adjustment factor (from 1.0725 to 1.0577).
  • Some of the corduroy I used for the 24-panel ball increased its size by a lot, as I discovered when I made the 26-panel ball. This means my adjustment factor is too high. I made a new ball and resized my patterns according to its adjustment factor. I had also forgotten to update the pattern measurement table with the new weighted average circumference value, so those measurements were a little off.
  • I made many minor improvements and edits throughout the document.
• 6/25/2021 – I added a second set of assembly layout diagrams to my 12-panel and 14-panel color arrangements. My original assembly layout diagrams were for my dual-hemisphere method, but some people may not want to use that method, so I added a more general-purpose layout. I also created new diagrams for the dual-hemisphere layouts, and for the cube layouts, with panels that are more separated (the originals were a bit too cramped). I updated the printable blank color arrangement diagrams and the downloadable PNG versions.
• 6/19/2021 – Added the 26-Panel Rhombicuboctahedron chapter (35 pages) that I have been working on for the past month and a half. It includes diagrams for 27 color arrangements (plus a few variations). I also created a new Appendix III describing how I create HDR beanbag photos. The old Appendix III is now Appendix IV.
• 6/4/2021 – Due to rearranging chapter sections and deleting and adding section in some cases, some hyperlinks throughout the document no longer worked. I have fixed them all (I hope).
• 5/24/2021 – I moved the "Supplies" and "Printing and Drawing the Pattern" sections so that they come before the "Color Arrangements" section.
• 5/16/2021 – I recalculated the circumferences of the 14-panel and 24-panel designs to use a weighted average of the different ways of measuring them rather than a regular average. This changed the adjustment factors slightly. I made new ready-to-print patterns for the 24-panel design, though the change was very slight. The 14-panel pattern size change was insignificant, so I did not make new patterns. I also made a few other corrections, but all minor.
• 5/4/2021 – I improved the rulers at the bottom of pattern pages, and I added new footbag designs from Allan Peterson of HaneDaneFootbags.com to my "Lineup of Footbag Panel Structures" (26-panel, 122-panel, 182-panel, 452-panel).
• 5/1/2021 – I added information about the use of marine vinyl and the baseball stitch, and the new balls I made using this material and stitch. (Additions are in Chapter 2: "Fabric" and "Stitching Techniques", and Chapter 4: chapter header photos and the end of the chapter.)
• 4/16/2021 – I completely rewrote the "Calculating Your Pattern Size" section of Chapter 2 and renamed it "Adjusting/Scaling a Pattern to Produce an Accurate Ball Size". It is now oriented more toward my new emphasis on the ready-to-print patterns, and simplifies the whole matter of calculating and making use of a pattern adjustment factor. This section was still minimally altered from what it was in my original guide. That guide was strongly oriented toward readers who want to calculate and draw their own patterns and understand how the pattern formulas work. I now have what I think is a more realistic perspective, which is that these people are probably extremely few or non-existent.
  
  I also added links to this section to the ready-to-print pattern sections and reworked the pattern sizing formula sections a bit.
• 4/13/2021 – I created a Condensed Edition of the guide which omits all but the basic instructions for making the beanbags, and the patterns, printable color arrangement diagrams, and beanbag measurement tapes. This reduces the document length from 409 pages to 98 pages.
• 4/9/2021 – I just noticed this morning that my 14-Panel stitching path neglected one of the spoke seams in Illustration E. I corrected that, along with the written instructions.
• 4/8/2021 – ANOTHER MAJOR REVISION:
  • I increased the right margin by 0.5" to match the left margin (0.75"). I did this to reduce the line length of the text, which is a readability issue I had not considered before. This reduction does not make a large difference, but it helps, and it required only a minor reformatting of the document. Some images needed to be reduced in size and some things needed to be rearranged a bit. I originally wanted narrow margins to give me maximum space for layout, but I made the left margin wide enough to accomodate 3-ring binder hole punching.
  • To further improve readability, I broke up long paragraphs throughout the document wherever their content could logically be divided.
  • Some of the images were already smaller than I had originally intended, and with the further reduction necessitated by the wider margin, details and text in the images became too small. So I edited those images to enlarge the details. I also created new illustrations in the 14-Panel assembly instructions for the alternative method, and I made various improvements to other illustrations and text, and to layout.
  • I decided to create ready-to-print patterns for the Truncated Icosahedron (soccer ball) variation of the 32-Panel design. Since the equilateral hex variation is not a popular one, I did not originally feel it was worth the effort to create the patterns for it. All the reformatting and improvement I've been doing for the past several days inspired me to do it for the sake of completeness. I also added links to each set of patterns, and links to each design variation section for convenience.
  • All of this increased the page count from 399 to 409. Most content will now be on a different page from its previous location.
• 3/17/2021 – Fixed a few section hyperlinks in the 32-panel instructional chapter that pointed to invalid locations due to my rearranging the chapter sections.
• 3/7/2021 – MAJOR REVISION:
  • I finally created a hand-drawn (on the computer) alteration to the circular curve of the Beach Ball pattern that produces a better beanbag shape than the circular curve. The new curve very nearly matches Marylis Ramos' pattern. I created new ready-to-print patterns with that curvature, updated my instructions for drawing it, and wrote about my method of creating it in the "How I Developed This Design" section.
  • I reorganized the sections of the instructional chapters. Most readers will probably use the ready-to-print patterns rather than draw their own, and the new sequence of sections is oriented for them. The chapters now consist of the sections on making the beanbags, followed by the ready-to-print patterns, and then the sections on sizing and drawing the patterns. (The "Mathematics" and "How I Developed This Design" sections are at the end as before.) Readers who do not want to draw their own patterns will no longer need to scroll past irrelevant sections.
• 2/5/2021 – Added a comparison of Marylis Ramos' 4-panel beach ball pattern to my own, and some additional related discussion to the "How I Developed This Design" section of the Beach Ball instructional chapter.
• 2/2/2021 – Expanded and reorganized the "Stitching Techniques" section of Chapter 2. I described some techniques I had left up to the reader before (such as attaching a third panel to a pair of panels) and improved the directions for performing the backstitch. I also moved the instructions for crossing 4-way intersections to this section from the 24-Panel chapter's Assembly section, and expanded it to include 3-way intersections. I also added a few illustrations. I added references to this topic to the Assembly sections of the 12, 14, 24, and 32-panel chapters since their assemblies may involve this technique (I realized this and made all these changes through making a new 14-panel beanbag using my alternate assembly method).
  
  I also added Appendix III consisting of a list juggling beanbag manufacturers whose websites and photos I used in creating this guide.
• 1/28/2021 – Improved the instructions for orienting the lines of striped fabric or denim/corduroy in the 14-Panel chapter, and added an illustration to the Assembly section depicting the alternative method. I also improved and added topic headers to the "Making Templates" section of Chapter 2, and improved the technique for converting curved edges into angled cuts.
• 1/21/2021 – Added haching lines to the 14-Panel Assembly diagram, and a diagram and advice to the "Making the Panels" section, as guides for how to orient the lines of a striped fabric or a fabric like corduroy. I also added links to Marylis Ramos' pattern PDFs to all references to them (the links are usually in footnotes).
• 12/31/2020 – Changed the fractional inch labels on the Printable Beanbag Measuring Tapes to fractions instead of decimal values (I only just figured out how to make fractions in PhotoShop).
• 12/24/2020 – Made some minor edits to the 24-Panel chapter, improved Assembly Step 5, and improved the "How I Developed This Design" section in several places, hopefully making it clearer.
• 12/24/2020 – I added an essay about my Self-Righting Turtle Ball to the 32-Panel chapter (page 347) and references to it elsewhere in the guide.
• 12/17/2020 – Many minor edits to the Tetrahedron, Cube, Octahedron, and Dodecahedron chapters, and a few elsewhere (I have been gradually proof-reading each chapter again). The Octahedron's manual pattern drawing instructions got a correction to Step 5. It said to draw the third arc below the Guide Triangle Side. That was copied from the Tetrahedron instructions. The third arc is not below the Guide Triangle Side in the Octahedron's pattern. The Dodecahedron's straight-edged pattern sizing formulas got a minor correction, as well. I had left the adjustment factor as 5% rather than the newly calculated 5.5% referred to elsewhere in the chapter. Not a big deal.
• 12/15/2020 – Corrected references to the 4-Panel Beach Ball's adjustment factor. I had recalculated it as 9% and gave that value in the "Inflation behavior of fabrics" subsection, but I had neglected to update three other references to it in that chapter, which still referred to the old 8.1%. The values in the table of pattern measurements were correct, however, as were the ready-to-print patterns. I also added advice in the assembly instructions about closing 4-way seam intersections tightly which I had added to the 8-Panel assembly instructions but not to the beach ball's. I also made a few minor edits throughout the chapter.
• 12/8/2020 – Further improved the "Calculating Your Pattern Size" section, adding some advice about pattern adjustment factors for footbags with gathered seams, and a bit more clarification about how the adjustment factor is used in the pattern sizing formulas. I also made a few edits elsewhere that emphasize the need for making an initial, sizing experiment bag with which to calculate the adjustment factor, and the need to trace the patterns on the back/inner side of the fabric.
• 12/5/2020 – Reworked the "Calculating Your Pattern Size" section of Chapter 2. I made it simpler and clearer to follow, and I made a correction to the method of calculating the pattern adjustment factor. If an initial adjustment factor guess was used in drawing the patterns, the new one calculated from the actual beanbag measurement must be multiplied by the initial one to get the final adjustment factor. I had neglected to mention this.
• 12/3/2020 – Published the guide on Reddit.
• 11/26/2020 – Published the guide on my personal website.

---

Valid HTML5 and CSS